Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bullgrit" data-source="post: 5235307" data-attributes="member: 31216">I’ve seen many references, through the years, in many classic D&D publications (rule books, magazines, etc.) to the idea of having a large number of Players at a table in front of a single DM.It seems that Gygax often had many Players (up to 20) at a game session. Classic tournaments usually had 6-12 Players per DM. Many classic adventure modules said they were designed for 6+ PCs. And many people around here have claimed to have regularly played classic D&D with 6+ Players/PCs. (Personally, I never *regularly* had more than 6 Players at a time in my games; my average was probably 4 Players.)Why, then, do all the examples of play, and advertisements for the game show only 2 to 4 Players? I was looking through some of my old Dragon magazines (and some comic books), and I found all the D&D ads show no more than 4 Players at the table (plus a DM). Looking through the old classic rule books, I found the examples of play didn’t have more than 4 Players. (If there are examples with more than 4, point them out, please.)Was it just because showing 10 Players at a table looked cluttered for an ad? Or was there some other considerations? And if 10 people in a photograph is cluttered, aren’t 10 people around a kitchen table cluttered?And if following 10 Players in an example of play is too confusing, aren't following 10 Players at the table too confusing?Were they (they = TSR) learning that 4 Players was a more optimal number – for game play or for game sales – and so were showing ads for how they wanted people to play the game? Or were they showing the actual, real-world average, and just saying 6-12 in publications for the unusual situations like tournaments.It just seems like a real disconnect between what the advertisements for the game showed and what the publications for the game said was expected.Bullgrit</blockquote>

Verification